Abrasive articles are used in various industries to machine work pieces, such as by lapping, abrading, or polishing. Machining utilizing abrasive articles spans a wide industrial scope from the optics industry, the automotive body repair industry, to the semiconductor fabrication industry. In each of these examples, abrasives are used to remove bulk material or affect surface characteristics of products or work pieces.
In a particular example, the semiconductor industry uses abrasive articles to remove bulk material from the backside of a semiconductor wafer, known as backgrinding. Backgrinding often includes multiple machining steps, including a coarse grind to effect bulk material removal, followed by one or more fine grind steps to reduce subsurface damage, and provide a smooth surface finish that may be within a range of 50 to 500 Angstroms, for example. Such processing is believed to result in more consistent electrical properties in the substrate of the circuits printed on the front side of the semiconductor wafer. Moreover, with the advent of technologies that rely on the formation of electrical connections through the wafer, backside planarization, bulk material removal, and surface quality are becoming increasingly important.
However, the bulk material removal rate and the surface quality of the backside of the semiconductor wafer are notably dependent on not only the grit size of the abrasive article used in machining, but also on structure of the abrasive article. In particular, abrasive articles that trap dislodged abrasive grains and swarf between the abrasive article and the wafer often cause scratching in the surface of the wafer. As such, the surface quality on the backside of the wafer is poor following abrasion, which may influence the electrical properties and the circuitries formed on the front side of the wafer.
As such, an improved abrasive article would be desirable.